Brett Duane
Sustainability in dentistry
- Brett Duane is a public health and environmental sustainability specialist with a background in dentistry and healthcare systems.
- He holds academic and leadership roles focusing on sustainable healthcare delivery, particularly in dentistry, kidney care and more recently healthcare plastics recycling.
- Brett leads EU and international research projects, combining environmental impact assessment with health system improvement.
- His work bridges policy, clinical practice, and environmental science, with recent efforts on benchmarking dialysis modalities and advancing circular economy solutions in healthcare.
- A skilled communicator and collaborator, Brett engages stakeholders across sectors to drive sustainable innovation and policy change.
Nationality: Ireland
Scientific areas: Innovations in Dentistry
6 of november, from 09h00 until 10h30
Room 1
Conference summary
In this 75-minute session, Brett Duane will explore the principles and practice of sustainable dentistry, with a particular focus on prevention and actionable strategies that dental professionals can implement to reduce their environmental impact.
Beginning with a compelling rationale—why sustainability matters in oral health care—the talk introduces key concepts like carbon footprints and carbon dioxide equivalents in the context of daily dental practice.
Brett will outline a practical roadmap for creating a greener dental practice, including appointing and empowering a sustainability lead, measuring and analyzing the practice’s carbon footprint, and engaging both staff and patients in sustainability efforts.
He’ll discuss thematic areas for carbon reduction such as patient and staff travel, procurement choices, waste management, and energy use, supported by real data and case examples—including a live carbon footprint demonstration.
A significant portion of the presentation will be devoted to prevention, emphasizing its dual value in improving health outcomes and reducing environmental harm. Studies such as those on water fluoridation and the Childsmile programme will illustrate the environmental savings of upstream, population-based oral health strategies.
The session will conclude with a call to action for the dental research community: identifying the types of research needed to support sustainability in dentistry. These include life cycle assessments of common procedures and materials, evaluations of new preventive approaches, and system-wide studies on sustainable care models.
Attendees will leave equipped with knowledge, tools, and inspiration to make their practices more sustainable today—and drive the research needed for a greener dental future.